The Writer and the River is a graphic novel following a young women and her experience with sexual harassment in the workplace. The Writer and the River is based on mine and my mother’s experiences with sexual harassment, wider studies of modern women’s stories, and Shakespearean narratives.

The story is a patchwork of various Shakespearean texts, presenting Shakespeare’s stories and heroines in a modern context that is validating and relevant to contemporary female readers.

The book begins as mainly graphite sketches, with some small fabric elements, and builds to scenes articulated fully with rich fabric and embroidery. The fabric innately speaks to female craft throughout history, and the tapestries women crafted in the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods. All characters apart from Sophie (the protagonist) are based on Shakespearean characters.

To claim back control, Sophie writes a story about her harasser taking the form of a a miniature book inside The Writer and the River constructed of fabric. This ‘book within a book’ feature is a reference to the ‘play within a play’ Shakespearean motif.